I enjoy articles like this because so much focus is on the expected benefits of healthcare IT, but as the old marketing tale goes, sometimes ‘the dogs just don’t like the dogfood’. If users won’t use the tools, the outcomes won’t be realized. As is often the case with products, the specialist is not well understood or served. The same applies for imaging consumers–the average imaging consumer using an EHR is quite different than the specialist that needs advanced visualization, navigation and measurement tools. Niche vendors will attempt to fill the gaps.

Most EHR user interfaces resemble an electronic filing cabinet, organizing information by type or service / organizational unit that created the data. Vendors could learn a lot from the design of social networking platforms, which are quite adept at coordinating activities in complex interactions among disparate users.